Anthropomorphic animals and humans compete to survive in the unforgiving African wilderness in this visceral debut novel by Core.
Disa is in a position perilous to most elephants—heavily pregnant and separated from the herd. Rufu is a battle-scarred lion who watches her greedily. He lies in the long grass, talking with Temba, an old baboon, about his desire to feast on the sweet meat of the newborn elephant. Disa’s strength makes this far from an easy kill for Rufu. After the baby is born, Rufu immediately attacks it, but Disa’s sister, Bhasa, deals the old lion a bone-crushing blow. Nearby, Alan teaches his fiancee, Rosy, how to protect herself in the wild. He has recently returned from World War II and is suffering from PTSD. He urges Rosy to take a “frontal brain shot” on an elephant protecting what appears to be a dead calf. Rosy refuses, believing the calf to be alive, but now the hyenas move in. What will become of Disa and her faltering calf, Benyu? How will Alan and Rosy feature in this perpetual struggle between predator and prey? The author’s ability to lend believable voices to the various animal packs drives this thrilling narrative. Bwoni, the dominant female hyena, is suitably bloodthirsty: “Rufu has softened up a baby elephant for us. It lies in the middle of this herd, but if these cows keep it in the center we will not be able to get to its juicy flesh.” The book’s cringe-inducing sex scenes between Alan and Rosy (“I want you to make love to me like you use to, like you mean it, like you did before the war. I want it long, hard and furious”) don’t fully detract from an imaginatively conceived novel that places the reader dead in the center of a bloody fight for survival. Black-and-white illustrations are included.
Gory and carnal with some clever, bold strokes.Pub Date: Dec. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5462-0273-8
Page Count: 278
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | SCIENCE FICTION | GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION
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A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
Categories: GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | FANTASY
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PERSPECTIVES
Strange and fascinating alien-contact yarn, the first of a trilogy from China’s most celebrated science-fiction author.
In 1967, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, young physicist Ye Wenjie helplessly watches as fanatical Red Guards beat her father to death. She ends up in a remote re-education (i.e. forced labor) camp not far from an imposing, top secret military installation called Red Coast Base. Eventually, Ye comes to work at Red Coast as a lowly technician, but what really goes on there? Weapons research, certainly, but is it also listening for signals from space—maybe even signaling in return? Another thread picks up the story 40 years later, when nanomaterials researcher Wang Miao and thuggish but perceptive policeman Shi Qiang, summoned by a top-secret international (!) military commission, learn of a war so secret and mysterious that the military officers will give no details. Of more immediate concern is a series of inexplicable deaths, all prominent scientists, including the suicide of Yang Dong, the physicist daughter of Ye Wenjie; the scientists were involved with the shadowy group Frontiers of Science. Wang agrees to join the group and investigate and soon must confront events that seem to defy the laws of physics. He also logs on to a highly sophisticated virtual reality game called “Three Body,” set on a planet whose unpredictable and often deadly environment alternates between Stable times and Chaotic times. And he meets Ye Wenjie, rehabilitated and now a retired professor. Ye begins to tell Wang what happened more than 40 years ago. Jaw-dropping revelations build to a stunning conclusion. In concept and development, it resembles top-notch Arthur C. Clarke or Larry Niven but with a perspective—plots, mysteries, conspiracies, murders, revelations and all—embedded in a culture and politic dramatically unfamiliar to most readers in the West, conveniently illuminated with footnotes courtesy of translator Liu.
Remarkable, revelatory and not to be missed.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7653-7706-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
Categories: SCIENCE FICTION
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